President Obama formally endorsed legislation Saturday creating an independent commission with the power to force Congress to vote on major deficit reduction steps this year, after the November elections.

Obama endorses deficit panel

Trying to win the votes of fiscal moderates, President Barack Obama formally endorsed legislation Saturday creating an independent commission with the power to force Congress to vote on major deficit reduction steps this year, after the November elections.

Obama’s statement gives new momentum to efforts in the Senate now to attach such legislation this coming week to a pending debt ceiling bill. But the endorsement comes so late that it risks being seen as just a ploy to win over swing Democratic senators whose votes the White House needs to lift the federal debt ceiling.

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“The President is demonstrating exactly the kind of leadership we need to tackle our nation’s long-term fiscal challenges,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), a lead sponsor of the legislation to create an independent deficit commission. “His support shows that he is determined to do what is necessary to put us back on a sound long-term course.”

But support in the Senate has so eroded in the past month that one Republican senator told POLITICO Saturday that “the horse is already out of the barn,” and getting the 60 votes needed for passage will be next to impossible.

In this light, Obama’s endorsement may be most important politically on two fronts: aligning him with fiscal moderates and throwing a challenge down to Republicans.

If the Senate votes Tuesday to reject the Conrad plan, the White House can then step forward in Wednesday’s State of the Union address with what has been the administration’s preference to date: a commission created by executive order that would leave more discretion to House and Senate leaders as to how to address its recommendations. And having shown his support for the moderates’ cause, Obama will be in a stronger position to ask Democrats like Conrad to support the debt ceiling increase.

The challenge to Republicans is more subtle but very real after the Democratic defeat in Massachusetts’s Senate election last week.

Obama no longer has a 60-vote filibuster proof Senate to work with, and Saturday’s statement made a strong pitch for Republicans to come forward and work with him. And at a time also when Obama wants Republican votes for the nomination of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, it gives the president a chance to look bipartisan and split off old-line fiscal conservatives in the GOP.

“These deficits did not happen overnight, and they won’t be solved overnight,” the president said. “We not only need to change how we pay for policies, but we also need to change how Washington works. The only way to solve our long-term fiscal challenge is to solve it together – Democrats and Republicans.”

“That’s why I strongly support legislation currently under consideration to create a bipartisan, fiscal commission to come up with a set of solutions to tackle our nation’s fiscal challenges – and call on Senators from both parties to vote for the creation of a statutory, bipartisan fiscal commission.”

Powerful Democrats, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), are adamantly opposed to the commission. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), in a letter to colleagues Friday, warned them against being “stampeded” into the Conrad bill, which would require expedited votes in both the House and the Senate.